Key players are fleeing for the private sector and other agencies in droves, even as the bureau struggles to meet post-9/11 standards. Why??? Because of the money!! The govt is out-sourcing almost everything area of intel and analysis. Why should we make minimum when we can take a contractor job and make much more. The vendor then sells us back to the govt and we end up doing the same task/job. The only difference is that we don't get benefits and health..... In the long run, it is cheaper for the govt to out-source. Go figure........... Now, the meat of the story: Who wants to work for the FBI anyhow??????
FM
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- The rapid turnover of top-level managers
and highly trained specialists since Sept. 11, 2001,
is causing disorder within the FBI and undercutting
its efforts to meet the mandate of Congress to expand
its intelligence and counterterrorism capabilities
dramatically.
Its new intelligence arm, which is to form the core of
a transformed FBI, is losing dozens of analysts who
are supposed to connect the dots to protect the
country from another terrorist attack.
All four members of the top management team announced
by director Robert S. Mueller III shortly after the
Sept. 11 attacks have left their jobs -- as have their
successors. Some other officials have had three or
even four jobs since the attacks.
Since Sept. 11, five people have held the bureau's top
counterterrorism job. Five others filled the top
computer job within a 24-month period. And more than
1,000 other senior FBI agents and officials are now
eligible for retirement, boding a further exodus of
employees who form the agency's backbone. In figures
provided recently to Congress, the FBI estimated that
the number of top managers below the senior-executive
rank will decline by 16 percent -- about 70 people --
in the next year alone.
The rush to the exits partly stems from burnout caused
by the intense pace and scrutiny that followed Sept.
11, officials say. It also reflects the growing
post-9/11 demand for security expertise in other
fields, leading to the departure of dozens of FBI
officials for more lucrative jobs.
One example: The head of the Los Angeles FBI field
office left in January to become California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger's head of homeland security,
only to leave six months later for Walt Disney Co.
It also illustrates how the FBI, like many
bureaucracies, is a graying institution. A surge of
hiring in the 1970s, and the bureau's liberal
retirement rules, are being felt at an inauspicious
time.
Many of the analysts are leaving for other parts of
the U.S. intelligence community - wooed by fellow
agencies like the CIA at a time when, in the view of
groups such as the Sept. 11 Commission, they should be
cooperating with each other more than ever.
Indeed, until very recently, the FBI was losing nearly
as many analysts to attrition and other causes as it
had managed to hire with the post-Sept. 11 infusion of
cash from Congress.
The turnover has led to a little-noted provision in
the 2005 spending bill that President Bush signed
Wednesday. It authorizes Mueller to offer unusually
fat retention bonuses to key employees who might be
threatening to leave.
Another provision authorizes Mueller to increase the
bureau's mandatory retirement age to 65 in select
cases, and to establish a "reserve service" of
retirees who could be called back to work in an
emergency without jeopardizing their pensions.
"The FBI is having difficulty retaining certain staff
in critical senior management positions, and other
specialized positions," acknowledged a senior
official, requesting anonymity. "Look at the
counterterrorism positions. You are lucky to get a
year out of them."
Mueller, who was unavailable to comment for this
article, has told Congress he is losing "some very
good, competent people" because he cannot afford to
compete with private sector salaries.
"But we've also lost them to CIA. We've lost them to
(the Defense Intelligence Agency). We've lost them to
Homeland Security," he told a House appropriations
subcommittee.
A costly and long-delayed overhaul of the agency's
creaky computer system has been linked to the
turnover.
A Government Accountability Office report earlier this
year that was critical of the upgrade efforts noted
that the bureau had had five chief information
officers in the preceding 24 months, and said that
lack of "sustained management attention and
leadership" had contributed to cost overruns and
delays.
"I compare it to a professional football team that has
five different head coaches in 24 months. There is not
going to be much stability and focused consistent
direction to the team," said Randolph Hite, a GAO
information-technology specialist.
But the latest director has been in place for a year,
which Hite said is a good sign.
The outflow of analysts -- considered crucial to the
bureau's attempt to create an intelligence service
that focuses on preventing terror attacks rather than
solving crimes -- is especially worrisome.
The analysts specialize in sifting though intelligence
information gathered from many sources and
interpreting it to identify potential terrorism
threats.
FBI documents provided to Congress show that between
Sept. 11 and last March, the bureau had hired 487
analysts. But the gains were largely offset because
361 analysts left for other jobs, either within the
bureau or elsewhere.
This year, the bureau had planned on hiring 900
additional analysts, but officials appear to have
scaled back their plans, in part because of the high
attrition. Officials implied at a recent congressional
hearing that they may add as few as 600.
In the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the FBI has hired
624 new analysts, with "much fewer than 100"
separations and departures, a spokeswoman said.
Recently, in an attempt to boost recruiting, the
bureau dropped a requirement that candidates have a
college degree. The bureau said that allows it to hire
qualified people who may have specialized skills but
not necessarily a formal education.
"The FBI is training these analysts so they can go
elsewhere," said a person familiar with the hiring
effort who requested anonymity. Other agencies and
private firms are "poaching like crazy. They train
these guys and they are skimmed off." The result, the
source said, is that "there has not been a significant
inflow of analysts relative to the numbers they've
said they want to get."
Advancement opportunities and the stature of analysts
in the FBI are limited compared with their
counterparts at spy agencies like the CIA. Most
importantly, the FBI traditionally hasn't paid as
well.
"Until recently analyst positions at the FBI were
viewed as pretty second-rate. If you were anybody who
was anybody at the FBI you were a special agent," said
a congressional investigator familiar with the
problem. "Analysts do not have the same cachet."
But it has been at the FBI's highest levels where the
turnover has been starkest.
Some of the most sensitive top management posts are
held by relative newcomers. Among others, the heads of
finance, administration, criminal investigations and
internal inspections have been in their jobs for less
than a year. The bureau's office of strategic planning
has been without a director for months.
The FBI argues that in some cases the personnel
shifting is healthy in giving people a breadth of
experience and bringing a fresh eye to problems. But
some observers are concerned that the managers do not
have time enough to learn their job before being moved
on to their next assignment.
"Every time you call headquarters a different guy at
the desk would answer the phone. You would have to
start everything all over again," said a former
terrorism investigator.
"It is not just at that top level. It is at every
level. Everybody is kind of in a state of flux all the
time."
The turnover has been especially acute in the
terrorism arena, where the bureau has run through a
long line of distinguished executives in just three
years. Two -- Dale Watson and Larry Mefford -- had
each been with the FBI since 1979, and left to take
jobs in the private sector.
Each departure in the agency triggers a chain
reaction. Bruce Gebhardt, the bureau's deputy
director, left in October for the MGM Mirage. He was
replaced by John Pistole, who had been the fourth
counterterrorism boss since Sept. 11 and whose
promotion opened the door for the fifth.
"I grew up in the FBI, and I am a flag-waver, but it
takes a toll on you," said Gebhardt, a 30-year veteran
whose father was a longtime FBI man.
Other FBI executives have left in recent years for
employers as diverse as the consulting firm Booz Allen
Hamilton and the Catholic church.
Like other federal agencies, the FBI has offered
bonuses to senior executives before. But the new
bonuses are more lucrative -- up to 50 percent of base
pay -- and appear to be available to a much wider
circle of employees. According to the newly enacted
legislation, they would be available to employees of
"unusually high or unique qualifications" who are
deemed by Mueller to be "essential" and are likely to
leave without the incentive.